Urban Issues

Gary Death Countdown

by

[UPDATE: A follow-up Gary Death Countdown post is here.]

It’s much more likely not to happen than to happen but the clock is ticking for the death of Gary, Indiana. State law imposes property tax caps on all local governments far below the level Gary has grown accustomed to. Gary finances 80% of its $80M+ general fund operations through the use of property taxes. A vote on including the tax caps in Indiana’s Constitution is widely expected in 2010.

Gary has appealed and gotten special exemptions at a level unique in the state to maintain higher taxes while undergoing adjustments to bring government down to a size that can survive on anticipated revenue. Absent that relief, Gary’s 2010 property tax receipts would drop from a projected 62.9M to 28.1M.

As a condition of the transitional relief, a financial monitor was required for Gary and its related municipal districts (sanitary, storm water, public transport corp, and airport authority). The transition ends in 2012. If Gary has not adjusted sufficiently that it can handle somewhere between 20-30M less in revenue by that time, the 5th largest city in Indiana will be forced to declare bankruptcy.

Complicating matters are at least $34M in outstanding debts on top of its impending structural deficit. The term at least is used advisedly because unlike most cities, and most private organizations of its size and complexity, Gary uses a cash based accounting system. Future obligations that have not been presented for payment are not accounted for at all in a cash based system. The city government literally doesn’t have the capacity to accurately know what it owes. Because of the lack of information the financial monitor is forced to guess at some basic information.

The current Gary financial monitor’s report makes for frightening reading. Property tax revenue is scheduled to drop 50%+. There is no likelihood of a local income tax and Indiana does not share its sales tax revenue with local government. One of two casinos operating in Gary has entered bankruptcy and even before then a dispute with the casino operators disrupted payments to Gary. The bad news keeps on rolling for 265 pages.

Civic Amputations

by

Via Instapundit comes this story on plans to bulldoze large sections of 50 failing cities in Great Lakes states. That alone is enough to make one weep.  A mere 40 years ago, these cities were still the economic titans of all the earth and now they are imploded wastelands. 

Even more shocking and frightening is the strange, delusional state that seems to have settled over the political thinking of the majority of the people in the region. They seem to have no conception that their own political choices destroyed their communities. Worse, they’re rationalizing their own self-inflicted failure as a good thing. 

Here’s Dan Kildare, Obama’s point man for the plan:

“The obsession with growth is sadly a very American thing. Across the US, there’s an assumption that all development is good, that if communities are growing they are successful. If they’re shrinking, they’re failing.”

What the HELL is wrong with these people?

Read more

Mad Max Days

by

The mayor in Flint, Michigan seems to be pondering something that used to seem impossible. The idea is to cut off abandoned neighborhoods from city services. No police, no fire, no services of any kind.

It certainly seems logical from a purely realistic standpoint. As more and more property is left to rot, there simply isn’t enough tax money coming in to provide services to every corner of the city. Might as well concentrate on the areas that still have enough legal residents still paying their taxes.

What do I think of the scheme? The very first thing that comes to my mind when someone tells me of a pie-in-the-sky project is “How are we going to pay for that?”, and this just seems to be the reverse. If the situation has deteriorated to the point that there just isn’t enough of a tax base to pay for basic services in less populated areas, yet the city government still tries to provide those services, then pretty soon the system would collapse and there wouldn’t be anything.

And, before I get a lot of angry comments, I realize that good, honest, hardworking people will suffer for this. People who have followed the rules, paid their taxes, and watched while the good neighborhood where they bought their house decades in the past became a criminal infested blight are going to get the shaft. But they will be screwed anyway if Flint goes bankrupt and everyone inside the city limits is left swinging in the breeze. They are just the one in the lifeboat who drew the short straw.

So far, it seems to be a notion the mayor of Flint has discussed only in passing, but I don’t see the situation improving any time in the future. It will be interesting to see if they have to go through with it.

(Cross posted at Hell in a Handbasket.)

The Rust Coast

by

The speed with which socialism can destroy a region never ceases to stun me. In the 1960s Los Angeles eclipsed New York as the place to be in America to make things happen. And now...

“The Rust Coast” seems an incorrect metaphor as California does not have great industries of steel as did the Great Lake states. Yet, what do film, silicon and aircraft aluminum decay to?  

Whatever we call it, it is the dust of squandered dreams. 

[h/t Instapundit]

[Update: (2009-2-25 3:14pm): Steven Malanga via Instapundit,

But California doesn’t just have a spending problem. Increasingly it also has economic and revenue problems. Even as I write this other neighboring states are running ads in local newspapers inviting California businesses to move their headquarters out of the state. That’s advertising money well spent. A poll of business executives conducted last year by Development Counsellors International, which advises companies on where to locate their facilities, tabbed California as the worst state to do business in.

There are a host of reasons why California has become toxic to business, ranging from the highest personal income tax rate in the country (small business owners are especially hard hit by PITs), to an environmental regulatory regime that has made electricity so expensive businesses simply can’t compete in California. That is one reason why even California-based businesses are expanding elsewhere, from Google, which built a server farm in Oregon, to Intel, which opened a $3 billion factory for producing microprocessors outside of Phoenix.

]

Pigging Out

by

Dan from Madison recently wrote a post discussing how wild predators, once unknown in cities and towns, are now making their homes in urban areas.

The subject that seemed to interest most people was how feral hog populations are also spreading. They are dangerous and destructive animals, and I firmly believe that keeping their numbers down is a matter of public safety.

The Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Study has a fascinating map available on their website. It shows the areas of the country where feral swine populations exist.

The map by itself doesn’t show how quickly the animals have spread, but you can get an idea of that by taking a look at these three earlier maps.

Notice, if you will, that California had only minor infestations of feral swine back in 1988. By 2004, however, wild pigs could be found all throughout the state. I think this is due to how hunting is generally perceived there. Although necessary for wildlife habitat preservation and the continued health of game animal populations, it appears to me that the activity is denounced by most people living in California as a terrible and savage practice.

My home state of Ohio has a page devoted to wild boar, along with a detailed map showing the distribution of wild swine in the state. It is legal to harvest wild boar year round here, either by a landowner on their own property or by someone with any valid hunting license. Purchase a license to hunt pheasant and come home with a few hundred pounds of pork. Num num!

Although I have eaten my fill of various cuts from wild boar many times, I have never tried bacon made from a feral pig. I think that will be my next hunting project.

(Don’t forget that photos of wildlife observed in urban settings can be found at Subdivision Wildlife, and they are now accepting your personal photos.)